TWA

Krytical Mass KM-01 Reactive Octave Fuzz

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THE EARLY '70s Maestro Bass Brassmaster is the inspiration for Totally Wycked Audio's new Krytical Mass KM-01 Reactive Octave Fuzz. Originally designed in 2008, it was shelved for 15 years for reasons that included founder Kevin Bolembach's obsession with nailing the sound of the original Maestro. The wait seems to have been worth it, because the Krytical Mass is a greatsounding fuzz that's more straightforward than the TWA prototype that engineer Robert Derby developed.

That said, the KM-01 is still a featuresome device with knobs for sensitivity, dry and level; a pair of mini pots for edge (high-frequency rolloff) and bias; and four powerful minitoggle switches: HPF activates a high-pass filter; LPF 1 activates a low-pass filter situated post clipping diodes to add low-end to the fuzz; LPF-2 is another low-pass filter located after a twin-T notch filter to affect overall tonality; and Mids is a three-position switch that cuts midrange at specific frequencies in the up and down positions (center is off). A trimpot adjusts the Q, or sharpness, of those frequencies, which are in the 1-to-8kHz range.